Learn more about Black House:

From the Publisher:The bestselling collaboration between bestselling authors Stephen King and Peter Straub?an epic thriller about a small American town held in the grip of unspeakable evil?and the spectacular follow-up to the classic The Talisman.

Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her ?Twinner? from an agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories, and he was compelled to leave the police force when a happenstance event threatened to awaken those long suppressed and dangerous memories.

When a series of gruesome murders occur in western Wisconsin that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier, Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help find the killer. But are these new killings merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams?if that is what they are?of robins' eggs and red feathers? As these cryptic messages becomes impossible to ignore, Jack is drawn back to the Territories and to his own hidden past.

Annotation:Called out of retirement to hunt a copycat serial killer dubbed the Fisherman, Jack Sawyer must once again descend into the parallel world of the Territories. This is the sequel to THE TALISMAN.

Author Bio

Stephen King

Born in 1947, Stephen King has become a household name all over the world. His mother raised him and his brother after their father deserted the family in 1950. In high school, King began to write short stories, his first published work appearing in 1968. He attended the University of Maine, graduating with a B.S. in 1970. Up until his first novel appeared, King had worked in an industrial laundry, as a janitor, as well as an English teacher. CARRIE, his debut, was met by a largely indifferent public in 1974. It wasn't until two years later, after King's second novel 'SALEM'S LOT and the filmed version of CARRIE, that King became a major player in the horror field. THE SHINING, his 1977 haunted hotel novel, began a litany of bestsellers, including THE STAND, THE DEAD ZONE, PET SEMETARY, DOLORES CLAIBORNE, and many others. King's work is regarded as instrumental in bringing about a resurgence of interest in horror fiction in the 1970s and '80s. An extremely high percentage of King's voluminous literary output has been filmed, with varying degrees of success, but all serving to carry the name of Stephen King far and wide. He has written nonfiction, given lectures, acted in films, and continues to produce huge novels nearly every year, all of which become instant bestsellers. As an bizarre sidenote, during the summer of 1999 while walking along a back road in Maine, King was struck and seriously injured by a minivan whose driver apparently lost control of the vehicle while being distracted by his dog--thus creating exactly the kind of news item that might have inspired several of King's own novels.

The events of Peter Straub's childhood--including teaching himself to read in kindergarten, being involved in a car accident in first grade that left him in a wheelchair for a time, and developing a stutter that lasted until his 20s--conspired to give him something of a dislike for school. So after graduating with an M.A. from Columbia University in 1966, he did what anyone in a similar situation would have done: He became an English teacher at the very school he attended in Milwaukee. In 1969 he moved with his wife to Dublin, Ireland, to study for a Ph.D. There he began to write poetry, publishing two collections prior to his first novel, MARRIAGES, in 1973. Now living in London, Straub's work began to take a turn toward horror with JULIA and IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW--both about malevolent ghosts. But Straub didn't really hit the big time until 1979's GHOST STORY--about a group of elderly men whose regular ghost story-telling sessions become the target of a ghostly revenge--became a huge bestseller. The film version, made in 1981, featured among its extraordinary cast Fred Astaire (who was 82) and Melvyn Douglas (who was 80) in their last roles, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (at 72) in his penultimate role, and John Houseman (who was 79). After the success of GHOST STORY, Straub wrote SHADOW LAND and FLOATING DRAGON, before his 1984 collaboration with Stephen King, THE TALISMAN. After this, Straub began to slowly move away from the fantastic, all the while remaining a bestselling author. KOKO, the first book in a trilogy, was about a group of Vietnam vets hunting a killer. Like MYSTERY and THE THROAT--the other books in the trilogy--it focused more on mystery and detective themes, retaining only the barest of horror elements. With 1996's HELLFIRE CLUB, Straub finally jettisoned horror altogether, focusing on the complex relationship between an escaped psychopathic killer and his hostage. Averaging one book every three years or so, Straub is not the most prolific of authors, but, perhaps because of this, he is one of the most critically well-regarded best-selling genre writers.

Praise

Times Literary Supplement"There are weaknesses....In the end, however, we forgive these faults, because the community and the men, women and children who suffer to preserve it are so well drawn." - Roz Kaveney 10/26/2001

LocusIt may be unsettling to the earlier novel's many acolytes, but I think that BLACK HOUSE is a BETTER novel than THE TALISMAN, one that is more wholly and comfortably what it is, and some kind of dark masterpiece. On the strength of what Straub and King have accomplished here, both in terms of narrative drive and genre manipulations--after all, this is a horror novel that couldn't really exist without the fantasy-novel template that THE TALISMAN provided--I'm ready for whatever the scribbling fellows are up to next." - Gary K. Wolfe September 2001

New York Review of Books"BLACK HOUSE is a thriller, so let it thrill you. But notice the slippage, into chaos and bricolage. It's the usual Kingly mix of high, low, and middle-management cultures, a bouillabaisse of Moby Dick and Alice in Wonderland...." - John Leonard 02/14/2002